The new year is upon us. That means healthier eating, more time spent reading, getting to work earlier and making this the year of YOU! Well, at least for the first couple of weeks. Then it’s back to 99-cent heart attacks, tv and movie time on the couch (it’s Oscar season after all) and putting things off until next week (ha – that’s what I’ve been doing with this blog post). All joking aside, one thing that better be on your list of resolutions that actually gets checked off (not put off) is prepping your company’s website for mobile and tablet use.

We’ve done some digging on the data of sites that we’re managing here at Gorilla and all data points to users, even in the industrial marketing world, using mobile devices (iPhones, etc.) and tablets (iPads, etc.) more and more. Let’s dive in.

What analytics are telling us

Last week, I took a couple of hours one evening to investigate what kind of traffic our sites (the ones that we’ve built for our clients) are getting from mobile and tablet devices. I had a feeling that numbers were going to be up, but the rate at which they’re up really surprised me.

For the four retainer clients that we’ve worked with all of 2012 and 2013, we’ve seen the following positive increases in mobile traffic from 2012 to 2013.

  • Client 1 saw a 143.36% increase in mobile traffic
  • Client 2 saw a 97.05% increase in mobile traffic
  • Client 3 saw an 84.19% increase in mobile traffic
  • Client 4 saw a 26.91% increase in mobile traffic

Similarly, we have seen significant increases in tablet traffic for these same clients over the same time period. The numbers were as follows:

  • Client 1 saw an 81.60% increase in tablet traffic
  • Client 2 saw a 53.48% increase in tablet traffic
  • Client 3 saw a 74.16% increase in tablet traffic
  • Client 4 saw a 24.78% increase in tablet traffic

Making your site mobile and tablet friendly

As I wrote in this industrial marketing blog post back in May of last year, making your site mobile and tablet friendly doesn’t necessarily mean building a second website. In fact, it shouldn’t mean that at all. There are much better solutions to this – like responsive design. Responsive design ensures a good web experience for your users no matter the device they’re using.

What’s responsive design? Go to the bottom right corner of the American Piping Products site we built last year, clicking and dragging your mouse to the top left corner of your browser. The layout of the page will change as you make the screen closer to that of a tablet and eventually to that of a mobile phone. In essence, it’s responding to the size of the browser – hence the term responsive design.

Why this should matter to you as an industrial marketer

I could argue for days about why making your site mobile and tablet friendly is important. But in the interest of brevity, and a blog post that’s bearable to read, think of your web habits. Do you like pinching and zooming when you’re researching a potential vendor? Do you like when your fingers aim for one link but click another because the type on the screen is so small? Do you use your mobile and tablet devices more than you did, say, when your company last put any money into its website?

Hmmm… interesting, right?

Being in industrial marketing, I’m constantly perusing the web looking at industrial companies. And I’m absolutely floored at the number of companies that DON’T have a mobile friendly site. In today’s day and age, that’s just not going to cut it. But it’s okay – don’t feel overwhelmed. There are lots of companies that can help you, including ours. Simply click below for a free assessment to get started.